Bureaucrats “Giddy” With “Newly Minted Power”

It has been rightly said that “power corrupts,” an axiom that is reinforced again and again as the federal government controls more aspects of our lives without oversight.

Black-clad federal SWAT teams could soon be descending upon your farm, ranch, home, school, or place of business. Case in point: Iowa farms. On November 29, 2012, Chuck Gipp, director of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR), told a budget committee his department needed $1.3 million for hiring 11 new agents to inspect the state’s livestock facilities, pursuant to federal regulations. The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had given the Iowa DNR 60 days to implement EPA-ordered inspections. EPA is threatening to take over enforcement if Iowa does not satisfactorily comply with its edicts in the time allotted.

“EPA has said if we don’t have the staff, they could develop SWAT-like teams to do (inspections) for us,” Gipp said. “We’d prefer, and our people we regulate prefer, to have DNR staff there to get people into attainment.”

Are Iowans so unfamiliar with agriculture that they must be directed by federal bureaucrats in Washington on the proper methods for disposing of common barnyard substances? Are federal SWAT teams really needed to check on local cow pies? The political classes in Washington apparently think so, even though the pioneers and farmers of the Hawkeye State managed to transform the Iowa prairies into the “Food Capital of the World” without the EPA’s tutelage. Like other states in this American Republic, Iowa bears a proud motto: “Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain.” The EPA’s threat, along with many other federal mandates bearing down on the states, will test whether any resolve remains behind those fine words.

Persecuting the People

The threat of invasion by federal SWAT teams to enforce an out-of-control regulatory bureaucracy is not an empty one, as many recent news stories attest. Here are just a few cases:

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